Journal Gatekeeping: Lost Faith in Science

Broken System

On her blog, Maryanne Demasi has recently commented that medical journals are increasingly acting as ‘gatekeepers’ to promote ‘established narratives’ but sideline research that challenges the status quo. Many articles containing ‘controversial’ views that initially achieved publication have been promptly retracted. In the past 5 years, the retraction of papers criticizing the covid vaccines or lockdown policies, for example, has gone stratospheric. Maryanne discusses the example of David Speicher, an author whose pre-print research revealed high levels of DNA contamination in the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines in Canada. The regulators dismissed the study findings because this article was not peer reviewed. To address these shortcomings, Dr Speicher and coauthors submitted the article to four different journals, but each time swift rejections followed with unclear and unjustifiable reasons for such decisions. One such example was from Cureus, part of Springer Nature publishing group. Dr Speicher acknowledged that his team is not the first to face multiple rejections from journals, but wants to see serious reform in scientific publishing. “Every good scientist has faced their share of manuscript rejections,” Dr Speicher said, “I’m just disappointed about how broken the system is and that journal editors act as gatekeepers, preventing good counter-narrative science from being published. We desperately need a reform in scientific publishing.”

In her own Substack, Jessica Rose, co-author with David Speicher of the above mentioned article, suffered a similar fate with another article on vaccine-associated myocarditis, published in 2021 but then unilaterally withdrawn by the Editors within weeks. She recounts how the authors eventually republished their article, with the help of additional co-authors and inclusion of more recent data from the VAERS pharmacovigilance vaccine adverse events reporting system. The updated paper was published on 27 January 2024 in the SAGE open-access journal: Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety. However, this is not the end of the story! More than 1 year later, on 26 February 2025, the journal’s ironically titled ‘Research Integrity Editor’ contacted Dr Rose with concerns about the methodology and conclusions of their study, and informed her that an ‘investigation’ was ‘underway’. Apparently, two reviewers requested substantial revisions totalling 52 additional points to be addressed for re-submission by 26 March 2025. Is this post-publication ‘peer review’ approach intended to discredit the authors and potentially add pressure to bring about a retraction owing to behind the scenes discontent? Such ‘back-tracking’ on an already peer-reviewed article 1 year post-publication only serves to emphasize how unprofessional, unethical and unacceptable medical journal gatekeeping really is.

Redundant Retractions

Sadly, the above story is not unique or even exceptionally rare. Springer Nature has recently retracted another article that went through favourable peer review. This was the study of a phase II randomized, double-blind placebo controlled trial that showed the drug hydroxychloroquine was safe. However, with no clear justifiable reasons the study was retracted. Nevertheless, it was soon published elsewhere in the International Journal of Innovative Research in Medical Science. In this example, the lead author, Nicolas Hulscher, expands on what seems like a series of deliberate, systematic targeting of this research with a sequence of retractions or repeated rejections without peer review. This scenario is a common experience among researchers and has led many to conclude that an organized, even weaponized approach to removing perfectly evidence-based articles is rife if they do not fit a particular ‘narrative’. Other forces at play for such retractions include the dubious financial conflicts of interests that some journals harbour, owing to close industry connections. Notably, retractions not only contribute to concealing disclosure of harms caused by therapies that many millions across the globe have received, but they serve to dismiss or disregard the hard work of the referees who analysed the original research and recommended it for publication. This begs the question, why peer review novel research, if retraction follows so easily because it might stoke ‘political discomfort’.

Conformity Consensus

There are many who have commented recently on the state of science and losing faith in the scientific process, along with academic publishing. In reality, this situation has been a continuous, even pernicious journey spanning many decades – although the extreme ‘Covid era’ has unveiled this to amplified proportions. Much of the problem lies with finding “consensus”. Science should not be about consensus; rather, it should produce verifiable evidence or reproducible results. Regrettably, peer review seems to do little if any diligence to this aspect of science; rather, it is a form of conformity consensus. It is rare for research to be published that truly challenges the status quo and offers a completely different perspective on a topic. If such papers do arise, retractions often ensue accompanied by vague statements with no valid explanation, such as “this is not in the best interests of the public” – such throwaway statements are commonplace since Covid. Alarmingly, more than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 – way higher than all preceding years. More researchers are becoming casualties of this unrelenting practice.

Profit Playbook

During the past half-century, the profitability of large pharmaceutical companies has enabled them to dispense enormous financial investments into research, universities, medical education, medical journals, drug regulators, medical colleges and associations, and supranational institutions. This is highlighted in an article I wrote last year “America’s Medical Monopoly: An Injection of Truth”. This piece summarises the comprehensive book by Eustace Mullins exposing the story of how our existing medical monopoly was established, with its all too familiar disturbing playbook of censorship, corruption and subversion of ethics. Clearly, the totalitarian agenda has wrapped its tentacles around more than just the medical establishment. Disturbingly, the same insidious forces at play have also captured drug regulation, medical and scientific publishing, as well as the medical education systems. Science by its nature should be an open-minded, methodical inquiry that follows data and evidence wherever it leads, even if it turns out to be surprising, contrarian, and disconcerting. Since 2020, we have had to follow “The Science,” which is considered already established, settled, with its uncompromising air of authority. So, what is going on here? Have journals only recently become the vanguards of what gets published or is this phenomenon more long-standing and now more readily highlighted? Some Chief Editors of high-profile medical journals have acknowledged many years ago that their publications comprise an extension of Big Pharma’s marketing departments. Hence, this sad reality is not new, but has expanded of late.

Challenging Groupthink

Scientists and the peer-reviewed literature are as “influenced by groupthink processes as by dispassionate rationality.” How can the process of science and medical publishing be overhauled to ensure that the method of science has integrity, removes bias, involves correct interpretation, and is well conceived and states its limitations up front. How does the scientific community oversee that the scientific method used in experiments or studies is performed correctly, scrutinises its assumptions and interpret the results in an unbiased and accurate manner? Peer review no longer routinely performs its intended purpose; instead, it has been replaced by journal gatekeeping – guilty as charged! In an ideal world, medical and scientific journals would actively promote discussion of differing views. However, ‘groupthink’, of which peer review is an integral part, has associated biases, with editors and referees acting as “mindguards”.

Publish or Perish

An article published in January this year, stated that almost two-thirds of biomedical researchers think there is a reproducibility crisis in science, according to a survey published in November 2024. The leading cause cited for that crisis was the “pressure to publish” – unsurprisingly, this pressure is amplifying the reproducibility crisis. This is integral to the problem because the uncompromising culture in the research ecosystem is catalysing this vicious cycle. The ever-growing competitive culture in scientific research proliferates this problem owing to quantity over quality. Similarly, the metrics used to assess scientific progress is based on the number of publications a researcher has and where their articles are published – the so-called prestige metric of the journal rather than the underlying value of the research findings. Authors essentially compete for the ‘best’ journal to publish whereby the impact factor rating is the driving influence of research. Grant applications are only awarded if a researcher’s H-index or publications list is high, and funding programmes are inextricably linked to the publishing industry. Academic Publishing has a greater profit margin (37%) than Big Pharma, so observing these interwoven latent power structures lurking behind the medical–industrial complex is sobering.

Perils of Peer Review

What function does peer review serve and does it add value? Should research be peer reviewed? If so, should this step occur before or after publication? Do journal editors, who ultimately decide on what is published or rejected, have too much power? Should journals disclose publisher-related financial conflicts of interest? On the HART website, we covered the topic of peer review, in an article highlighting the integrity and censorship crisis. Apart from discussing the types and mechanisms of peer review as well as the different associated merits and limitations, this piece called for a paradigm shift in the role of peer review, embracing more openness and recognizing the unsalaried contributions of the often ‘silent’ reviewers who can make a big difference to the quality of a piece of published research. However, amidst the conformity consensus conundrum, peer review is, at present, inadequate at improving the quality and integrity of biomedical research.

Some Solutions

As Nicolas Hulscher opines: “the scientific community must reclaim its integrity, and those responsible for suppressing legitimate research should be held accountable”. Something clearly has to change. No wonder the public and often well-intentioned researchers have lost faith in science. In an article published 3 years ago (page 23): “Open Access Publishing: A Corrupt Agenda”, I posit that academic publishing is littered with hidden agendas and ulterior motives that significantly impact the integrity and quality of research. Substack now offers a more open, accessible, and hopefully less censored solution to these problems. However, academia needs to radically and independently invest and reinvent itself to restore the damage it has caused to the reputation of science. Perhaps journals could lead by example and publish their advertising revenue targets and declare any funding or industry-relevant incomes, since they stipulate this from their authors and reviewers.

Publishers should have a code of conduct that does not allow published research to be retracted just because the findings are contrary to mainstream views. Only in instances of data falsification, fabrication or blatant plagiarism should retractions arise. Any modifications or correction issues post-publication can be achieved with a debate style ‘Letter to the Editor’ or ‘Editor Disclaimer Note’. Repairing the fractured fault lines of trust in science can begin by co-creating a truly transparent, fairer and non-censored academic infrastructure that decentralises funding and publication systems. Such an approach would enable critical thinking, diversity of opinion and multi-disciplinary, collaboration-based research. We need a new publishing revolution that is not based on divisive impact factor scores, funding power inequalities and artificial publication metrics. Instead, a refreshing alternative would harbour a more collegial, decentralised and financially independent environment to foster healthy debate and discussion, combined with the scientific freedom to explore uncharted territory, including areas outside conventionally-funded projects. It is now time for the academic community to collaborate to make this happen!